FLOOD THREATENS WITH HOMELESSNESS: AN HAZARD CAUSED BY GOVERNMENT

June 9, 2015 was a terrible experience for families and resident in this community. It was a day like saying the world has come to an end. A day a lot of families living in the pit of poverty were highly affected. It is a day properties, shanty houses, schools in the community were all damaged and flooded respectively.

It is also a day commercial activities like petty traders selling in this community, commuters plying this road, has to find an alternative to resolve this environmental hazard experience. Again, it is a day resident of poor shanty life in the community, prays for their gods to
end this plague never experience in their life before in this community.

But the reality before the fact, demonstrate that the Local Council Government has blind eyes to see through problem of environmental hazard affecting the people. Instead, the government has shifted responsibility to resident, to be the people to sanitize the environs.

And the implication of this, further explain government negligence in this part of the world where a lot of poor families reside, was what happened this very day, that for four hours of the rain, people have to come out to begin to bail the drainage in order to allow the force of water to move easily.

Within this four hours of rainfall, residents who were under the heavy rain, continued to struggle with the drainage. In doing it, they have to mobilize for old fashion equipment like rake, shovel, bucket etc to dig out the heap dirt, blocking the drainage.

Even when this effort was put in place by some volunteer youths who needed to save their community from flooding, the pressure of water was very high for the people to handle. The speed of the rain volume of water, in addition with the force of water running down the only drainage that link to the canal was blocked.

The people struggling with the opening of the mouth of the small tunnel can only do the best they could, while this was experienced. Within the space of these four hours, it was like fighting with nature.

For the whole four to five hours, it was raining, the council Government didn’t show face even when the community made an effort to call their attention. What befallen after this effort was deafness from the government?

The Ministry of Environmental, Health, waste, safety and Sanitation was no where to be found. They sat back to watch this sad and horrific day in the community. They left people with old fashion equipment to struggle with the drainage and cast blame to nature, than government sleeping below social responsibility.

From the excuse of the Ministry, an agency that works for the interest of private pocket, that stayed too long to make any immediate move, because it has condition to sanitize the neighborhood; put a goof argument that it was the fault of the community, for being responsible of this horrific disaster.

The agency further accused the people for littering the drainage with dirt. That for this reason, the poor residents should suffer form their misdeed and disobedient for abusing the environment. They, on their own won’t make any immediate remedy to this environmental calamity.

They decided to make deaf hearing to the plight of the community, within hours residents were looking for bail out. Also, one funny comment made by the agency was that, people in the community have refused to honour the payment of environmental and sanitation fee issued every month in the community.

As a matter of fact, on that very day, one of the public schools (Nawarudeen Primary School) experienced the effect of the flood. The classrooms floors were with smelling water from the canal. A canal resolved to be the next available rest-room; because of government negligence to provide free, qualitative social amenities affordable for resident with public fund.

Many of the classrooms were both uncomfortable for the teachers and pupils. The teachers have to first ensured the pupils from different homes in the community were kept saved from this environmental havoc. To many of the teachers, it won’t be rational to continue teaching while this disaster was on.

Before the rain will slow-down for the hours it was raining, parents have been hugely concerned about their children on how they will be fare in the school. Immediately after the low pressure of the rain, parents began to run from the school. Already, the teachers in the school had resolved to keep the children in a save classroom by suspending teaching because of this situation

And because of this horrific experience, resident in the community continued to blame the government for what had happened. To the people, the government should have come to their rescue than staying this longer, even when resident made enormous effort to call their intervention; instead, it was face turn from council authority.

That blame took the minds of residents to period when the roads in the community were newly constructed. The engineering company never took the consideration of the old tunnel buried beneath the road before construction. In fact, they never change it with a better one. Also, the calculation of water flow was not appropriately done by the Engineering Company.

For rank and file residents in the community, such in many years have not happened before. To many, this is the very first time this will occur for a community of such to be flooded where a lot of families fear being loosing their homes, self-hard-sweat-belongings in a country where living condition is very hard for a lot of families in the pages of survival.

In the same day, those petty traders who sell along the road, the Inner Street and lane, were all affected. The same goes to houses beside the drainage and canal, were also terribly affected. The drainage, the unemployed youths and residents have to wrestle with to keep it from been blocked.

It was the only drainage about 60% residential homes utilized. The drainage that was blocked with waste materials like nylons, bottle rubber, cans etc when raining, was where the whole gutters in about 10 streets including lanes in the community water runs, and ran down through to the canal.

This is one crucial canal that is in between the two exit roads, linking other roads to the commercial places like Boundary market and Mosafejo / Amukoko area. The drainage situated as border in the community, rank and file residents after the rain came out in their numbers (children, fathers, mothers, old, youths) and began to speak in language they understood on what just happened.

In fact, a woman who rent a mini store situated beside the drainage that was blocked with waste materials for the four hours of the rain, said she hasn’t witnessed something of such nature like this before. This to her is the first time she had witnessed a community of hers, she has spent many years of in, been flooded with water.

To her, it is an eyesore to see people inside smelling dirty water flowing with speed from another canal that might possibly have harmful objects; staying for hours to bail the community from getting drown.

Another resident in this community, who also witnessed when this incident took place, said the same. He said for many year, he has stayed in this community, going forty years. This for him is a shock to see a community he resides flooded. It is a utmost shock to him experiencing this environmental hazard in his life.

This most annoying that vex me, he said. The Local Authority negligence to immediately come to the rescue of the community was not there. Instead, the government kept a deaf hearing to the hazard, which is very harmful to residents.

They decided to neglect the appeal of the poor residents in the community who put their lives on the line with old fashion equipment to rescue the situation. The authority on their part has failed to come down to bail the environmental hazard experienced by this shanty community on the day of June.

The man angrily flirt the air with bitter words that, over the longer years of government negligence in providing better social welfare has resulted to this environmental hazard to people in the community won’t forget. This is unconnected to the fact that government has shut-down anything to do with social welfare, he said.

That, the only thing residents know government for in the community is to come with their van to harass petty traders and neighborhood for either not paying or delaying payment of levies, taxes usually paid monthly or yearly without seeing any welfare response from the Local Council in effect.

In the same day, this horrible incident took place. Other neighboring communities / areas like Ijora-Badia, Orile, Mosafejo /Amukoko, Alafia were inescapable from this environmental hazard. These are communities that were highly populated and dense in outlook, where a lot of poor rank and file people reside. It is places that show-up the ugly side of the life of terrible everyday experience.

With the laudable bad construction of government, rattling with words that they are embarking on drainage's and roads construction, the hours of rainfall witnessed by residents in their various communities, was something that further exposes the characteristics of bad construction. It points that 60% of these drainage's were not well constructed alongside the flow of water to the canal.

It was the homes of poor residents and families that housed the water from the canal. In fact, in some of these areas / communities, the government claims they have a better drainage system construction, was defeated when the hours of heavy rainfall proved that all these projects were just cheap projects by the government.

They were projects carried out by the government at the expense of putting people’s lives in danger, giving cheap excuses that the residents in all manner are the people responsible for the environmental hazard experienced. But the story-line in between reality indicates the failure of government in inadequately using public resources to provide better social welfare for poor residents in the community.

And there is no easy road to explain what had happened than to refer it to the government in failing to provide qualitative social needs. Because, if these constructions have been well done, such won’t have occurred in the first instance and the people in the community won’t have bitterly complained. But because of this negligence and quack construction, the ugly experience became a realistic reference of what rank and file residents are going through in any environmental hazard in the community.